South Korea Makes History With Satellite Launch

The South Korean KSLV-1 rocket sits on the launch pad during ground tests before its first launch in 2009.

Credit: KARI

Using a smattering of
Russian and domestic technology, South Korea launched a small rocket toward
Earth orbit Tuesday, a significant first in the country's infant space program.

Korean media outlets
immediately hailed the
launch as a success, but it may take up to 13 hours for the mission's small
payload to radio home. Official tracking data on the satellite was also
unavailable early Tuesday.

The milestone mission began
with launch at 0800 GMT (4 a.m. EDT) Tuesday from the new Naro Space Center on
the southern flank of the Korean peninsula.

Liftoff was at 5 p.m. local
time in South Korea.

The first launch attempt
was scrubbed
last week when falty software triggered an automatic abort with less than
eight minutes left in the countdown. Engineers removed the rocket from the pad
for a few days as officials analyzed the issue.

The rocket returned to the
cliffside pad on Sunday.

The 108-foot-tall Korea Space Launch Vehicle
was pushed skyward by a Russian main engine, seemingly listing back and forth
as the icy white booster soared into clear blue skies and disappeared from view
over the Sea of Japan.

Within four minutes, the
kerosene-burning RD-191 engine was supposed to guide the rocket from its
oceanfront launch pad to more than 120 miles high. The Russian-built first
stage was programmed to separate from the KSLV's second stage a few seconds
later.

After coasting to an
altitude of nearly 190 miles, the Korean-made upper stage was to ignite and
consume its load of solid propellant in less than a minute to reach the blazing
speed necessary to achieve Earth orbit.

Plans called for the
launcher to deploy its small 219-pound payload at the nine-minute point.

The
rocket, also named the Naro, was aiming for an egg-shaped orbit with a high
point about 932 miles and a low point of 186 miles, according to the Korea
Aerospace Research Institute, or KARI

Tracking data on the
spacecraft, called STSAT 2, was not immediately available Wednesday morning to
confirm its actual orbital parameters.

About the size of a washing
machine, STSAT 2 carries a microwave radiometer to measure radiation energy in
Earth's atmosphere. The small satellite also has a laser reflector system to
allow ground stations to precisely track its orbit.

In the making since 2002,
the Naro 1 rocket's development was a partnership between KARI and Moscow-based
Khrunichev, the Russian aerospace giant that builds the Proton booster.

Khrunichev provided
hardware for the rocket's first stage, which is based on the Universal Rocket
Module the company developed for Russia's new Angara line of rockets.

The Angara launchers, which
Russia hopes will eventually launch a wide range of spacecraft, have been
afflicted with numerous delays and the rocket's lower half first flew from
South Korea.

The stage is powered by an
RD-191 engine based on similar powerplants with near-stellar records on the
Zenit and Atlas 5 rockets.

The Naro 1 rocket cost more
than $400 million to design, build and test, but South Korean officials were
openly wary of their odds for success before launch. Leaders said they expected
the rocket could fail because many new vehicles experience problems during
launch, according to news reports.

Tuesday's flight was to
propel North Korea into an elite group of nations that have successfully
launched rockets into orbit.

South Korea would become
the 10th country to achieve that mark since the Space Age dawned with the
Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957. The United States followed with the
launch of Explorer 1 the next year.

France, Japan, China, the
United Kingdom, India and Israel later developed and successfully flew their
own space launches in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Iran joined the club in
February when it launched an experimental communications satellite with a Safir
2 rocket.

Tuesday's rocket launch
provided an enormous boost to the country's psyche after last week's death of
former President Kim Dae-jung.

North Korea, which
reportedly attempted a failed satellite launch in April, criticized the
international response to South Korea's foray into the launch arena.

There was an outcry from
the international community following North Korea's launch, which U.S.
officials said was likely a disguised missile test.

"The South Koreans
have developed their program in a very open and transparent way and in keeping
with the international agreements that they have signed onto," said U.S.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

"This is in stark
contrast to the example set by North Korea, which has not abided by its
international agreements," Kelly said in a press briefing last week.